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Arnott’s Biscuits needed flexibility in their expanding production line. A new HMI, oven system and...
Industry
Manufacturing: Food and Beverage
Outcome

SAGE delivered a new HMI, oven control system and two new cooling systems which gave Arnott’s Biscuits flexibility in their expanding production line.

 

Upgrades were achieved with no production loss and no downtime.

Capability
PLC and HMI programming, system integration, installation, comissioning, service support.
Region

Adelaide, South Australia

Matt Bickle, Arnott's Biscuits

"SAGE upgraded our PLC and HMI with no loss in production and no downtime. It's a great result for us considering it was such a big upgrade." 

Challenge

With expansion into international markets and a subsequent demand to improve production at its Adelaide facility, Arnott’s required greater flexibility and speed of changeovers in their production lines. They wanted to be able to run any product in any line with ease. ‘Project Flex’ was their answer.

Part of the solution was in updating the outdated oven conveyor’s PLC hardware and HMI. An updated HMI system would improve the way operators could load new production orders, including a feature that allows different recipes to be stored, selected and produced on the same line.

A Recipe Management Page would enable each oven to store recipes with pre-programmed conveyor path, line speed set points and variables – thus allowing faster changeover and reduced margin for human error.

 

Solution

Arnott’s contracted SAGE Automation to complete the control systems upgrade which included removing obsolete PLC hardware and optimising the HMI according to Arnott’s specifications.

Specifically the upgrade included: an oven controls system upgrade for PLC and HMI and the installation of two new cooling systems for conveyors including reprogramming of PLC and HMI.

Project Management

  • Estimation and Cost Planning
  • Procurement
  • Safety assessment, risk mitigation planning and management
  • Changeover plan

Design

  • CAD Drafting
  • Low/medium voltage electrical design
  • Certified safety system assessment and design – Updating onsite safety systems.
  • PLC system design

Construct

  • Control Panel manufacture/wiring
  • PLC networking
  • HMI
  • System Integration

Commissioning

  • Installation
  • Commissioning
  • Low/medium voltage electrical installation
  • FAT and SAT testing
  • Provision of final, as built, documentation

SAGE Service

  • Ongoing SAGE Service support
  • SAGE SLA

 

Technology used

  • Hardwired
  • Pliz
  • Allen Bradley ControlLogix PLC
  • Allen Bradley SLC to Control Logix conversion toolDevicenet communication
  • Ethernet communication

Outcome

SAGE delivered the project under a tight schedule over four phases:

1st phase: PLC hardware update

  • SAGE kept SLC IO and installed a Rockwell Control Logix processor using their conversion tool
  • Added user data types (UDT’s) and Add on instructions (AOI) in place for recipe management at the next phase

 

2nd phase: installation of new cooling systems (x2) and consolidation of existing system (x1)

  • Control of systems centralised to one panel so effectively all cooling systems are monitored and controlled from a centralised PLC

 

3rd phase: new HMI programmed and installed

  • Improved HMI design and functionality according to Arnott’s specifications
  • Removal of old HMI and reconfiguration of new HMI - including four individual screens for each oven

 

4th phase: commissioning

  • New conveyor PLC programing and equipment
  • Manufacture and supply of control panel
  • Installation of variable speed drives (VSDs) and new flex I-O drops
  • Interface and communication for existing drives, PLC’s and HMI’s

 

Control system and HMI upgrade

Highlights

  • No production loss and no downtime for upgrades completed during production time
  • The PLC hardware removed was used as spares for other systems
  • SAGE determined that the processors needed replacing but the IO cards were still suitable, meaning Arnott’s could perform an incremental change
  • Arnott’s is now using the HMI that SAGE developed in new projects. SAGE is currently doing another Arnott’s project using similar HMI layout.

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